


what you have tamed

by factorielle



Series: KiKasa Week [2]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen, Mentors, Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-08 21:32:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1956873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/factorielle/pseuds/factorielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First lesson in being team captain: you don't get a break.<br/>Ever.</p><blockquote>
  <p>Kise may talk back, may act like basketball is one of a thousand things he can do better than anyone,  may hold court at practice when Kasamatsu’s not there to kick the prancing peacock out of him, but Kasamatsu has seen— has watched him play. Has, in fact, had to take him out of the customary first-years tryouts so he could redirect his focus on the other recruits. Unpolished as he is, Kise is the real deal. Who, seeing him, would think of making him <i>stop</i>?</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	what you have tamed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sparklespiff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklespiff/gifts).



Kasamatsu comes up to the counter just as Matsuo-san hands the previous customer their change, glancing repeatedly out the window.

"Good evening," she says, still looking away, when Kasamatsu sets the strings pack on the counter.

"Good evening, Matsuo-san," he answers pointedly, and her smile grows wider as her attention snaps to him.

"Yukio-kun! You’re deigning to visit me again?" She rings up the strings, hands them back before he’s even opened his wallet. "Basketball is taking too much of your time, I’d bet you’ve hardly practiced lately."

She’d be right. He’s been meaning to come around since before school started, but it’s been a harsh couple of weeks.

"I’m sure things will settle down soon," he says mechanically, but stops his attempt at an explanation when she glances left again. "What’s going on?"

She shakes her head, still looking. “It’s nothing.” Her checkered shirt is buttoned further up than usual, and she’s tapping her fingers absently on the desk in the rhythm he still recognizes as the first chords she ever made him decipher. “There’s a strange man who’s been standing there for a while.”

Kasamatsu looks too, has to take a step back to find the right angle to see outside between two posters for local gigs.

The man is… frictionless, is the only word that comes to mind, from the sharp suit to the slicked back hair and the sunglasses. He looks perfectly at ease in what is essentially a back alley; Kasamatsu tries to imagine him under a sudden downpour, and finds himself with the image of an invisible force field protecting him from the rain as he goes about his daily business. His potentially shady daily business.

"Do you want me to do something about him?" he offers, picking up his change. There’s too much as usual, an extra hundred yen that used to pay for a soft drink from the vending machine at the corner, back when his parents still paid for these expenses. 

Matsuo-san laughs, shaking her head. “I’ll handle it. But they should have made you captain sooner, responsibility looks good on you.”

"That’s the unpopular opinion," he grumbles, surprised that the words even come out.

She gives him an assessing look. “You know what to do if it gets too hard.”

"Quit basketball?" he suggests, eyebrows raised. Her eldest had been getting into the sport last he heard, and it’s apparently all his fault. 

She grins. “That band I talked to you about is still looking for a lead guitarist.”

"I will do my utmost to take your kind offer into consideration, Matsuo-sama," he says, bowing deep, and her laughter accompanies him outside.

By the time he thinks to look, the man is already in motion, coming straight at him. For a second, Kasamatsu thinks he’s being either scouted or targeted; both options ridiculous, unless the man had a lot of money on Kaijou at the last Interhigh.

He lets the man come to him at the shop’s door.

"Kasamatsu Yukito?" the man asks with a smile like a shark. "It’s nice to meet you. I’m Sugai Kanzaburo."

"It’s Yukio," Kasamatsu corrects, and regrets it instantly. "The pleasure’s all mine." It really will be, if Matsuo-san thinks this guy is a creep. Considering he seems to have stalked Kasamatsu all the way here, it’s not going to take her long to come to that conclusion.

“Yukio-kun,” Sugai says, and Kasamatsu feels his hackles raise. There’s a pause, then Sugai mutters “ah, of course you wouldn’t” in a tone of sudden, considerate understanding, before reaching in his pocket and proffering a pristine business card.

"I’m Kise Ryouta’s manager," he says as Kasamatsu takes the card, feeling the acute absence of one of his own to give back.

Prior to meeting Kise, Kasamatsu had never had to even think _I don’t discuss my teammates_. Now he has a reoccurring dream of a warehouse filled with hundreds of thousands of plastic models of himself, in Kaijou uniform and compression socks, all squeaking the sentence ad nauseam from their dusty boxes.

Dreams from which he wakes up gasping, as if he’d been the one in the box. He’s been so tired that Moriyama keeps suggesting he starts sleeping in class. Kasamatsu is beginning to seriously consider the idea.

He stares straight at the man. “I don’t discuss my teammates,” he says firmly.

"That’s what I want to talk about," Sugai says, undeterred. "Him being your teammate."

"Excuse me?" Did Kise go to his agency to complain about— what? Being held to the same standards as everyone else on the team?

Inside the shop, Matsuo-san has her phone to her ear. If Sugai is lucky, it’ll be the police. If not, Kise may have to find himself another agent in the very near future.

Kasamatsu takes a second to entertain the thought, then dismisses it. He makes eye contact with Matsuo-san, and finds that knowing a person for ten years does not prepare one to convey to them _he’s pissing me off but probably not dangerous please call off the backup_ with gestures and head movements.

She frowns, then nods and puts the phone down, and somehow communicates _call me when you’re done_ a lot more efficiently.

"I’m leaving," Kasamatsu says. "Follow if you want to talk." He heads for the station, at a pace that can only be called a walk because he has a foot on the ground at all times.

To his dismay, Sugai keeps up.

"I’ll be frank," he says, "Kise-kun shouldn’t be pursuing basketball."

Kasamatsu falters in his step, but years of experience on the court allows him to recover without making a fool of himself. “And why would you think that?” Kise may talk back, may act like basketball is one of a thousand things he can do better than anyone,  may hold court at practice when Kasamatsu’s not there to kick the prancing peacock out of him, but Kasamatsu has seen— has watched him play. Has, in fact, had to take him out of the customary first-years tryouts so he could redirect his focus on the other recruits. Unpolished as he is, Kise is the real deal. Who, seeing him, would think of making him _stop_?

“He is at a crucial point in his career,” Sugai says. “Basketball is a distraction at best, and a source of injury at worst.”

The way he says that makes Kasamatsu grit his teeth against the question of what, exactly, Kise has told Sugai. “Besides, it’s not much of a stretch. He’s already feeling… unwelcome.”

The light turns red just ahead of them. The nearest overpass is too far to merit the detour, and Kasamatsu is forced to stop walking.

“So you want me to what? Push him to quit?” Like hell he will. The kid needs an attitude adjustment, not a dismissal.

“Won’t it make things easier for you?”

In the short run, maybe, but Kasamatsu is no fool. Kise Ryouta will never be his favorite person, but there’s no denying he is Kaijou’s best shot at the Interhigh, especially in light of all the renowned monsters that are rising this year.

“You don’t seem to understand,” he says tersely, watching the red bars on the street light blink out one after the other, bringing him closer and closer to green and _movement_. “Kise is my— is Kaijou’s ace.” Kaijou’s ace and Kasamatsu’s chance, as selfish as it is.

“What if—”

“No.” He grabs his phone, finds Matsuo-san’s number easily. “He is a pivotal part of my team, he’ll stay that way until he convinces me to take his resignation, and I am done talking to you.”

* * *

Kasamatsu stalls by buying Kise a drink from the vending machine before assuring him that liquids are Not Allowed in the shop, but that only buys him so much time.

He should never have agreed to this.

“So you’re the fabled ace, huh,” Matsuo-san says when they come in, looking Kise up and down with as little shame and altogether more honesty than the hordes of fans who have become a collateral part of Kasamatsu’s daily life. “Almost live up to the legend,” she adds approvingly, and Kasamatsu instantly regrets every conversation he’s had with Matsuo-san over the last year, particularly that first one.

“You’ve heard about me?” Kise asks, eyes crinkled in that way he can never truly fake, the way that tells Kasamatsu that his pleasure is genuine.

“ _Have I_ ,” Matsuo-san says, delighted, and there is nothing in Kasamatsu’s future but utter humiliation.

Somehow, it doesn’t seem like the worst thing ever.

**Author's Note:**

> For KiKasa Week: Day 2, Being Possessive  
> Title obviously from The Little Prince: "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."
> 
> For Monica, because Kasamatsu playing guitar will never not be a source of entertainment.


End file.
